A friend in need

Over a month ago my cousin was in a major vehicle rollover accident that has left him paralyzed from the waist down. He's at the Mayo clinic getting speech and occupational therapy. I'm hoping to help raise some money for the myriad of stuff that might make his new life a little more comfortable.

Me blowing out the candles on my birthday cake. My cousin is the one with the party hat. 

He looks ready to party! 

If you have birthday or shower gifts to buy, please check out my other Etsy shop, Pumpkin Girl. For the foreseeable future I'll be selling everything at a discounted price and all proceeds will go to my cousin and his medical needs. My tie tee shirts are made with real men's vintage ties and I sew them all myself. I also have a few cute things for girls, like a clothesline bodysuit with little vintage clothes hanging on the line.

Thanks for taking a look!

Look What I Made: Breakfast Shirts

I made my kids shirts celebrating their favorite breakfast foods. This is shirt #2 for my older kiddo. The first one got smeared full of "boy dirt" (food, mud, pla-doh, etc.) and too small. The first one didn't have a donut. That was his special request. We've already gotten a couple of requests for more of these shirts for our friends...now just to find a few more spare minutes of "mommy sewing time."

Vintage embroidery

A few weeks ago I scored a few really old (40s?) embroidery patterns and this week I gave one a test drive. Spoiler alert: if you are a friend of mine expecting a baby soon, avert your eyes! If you aren't familiar with embroidery, you usually transfer the pattern onto fabric with an iron. The design transfers onto the fabric so you can stitch over it, but also washes off afterwards so what you have left is your finished product, not the lines.
Here's the result (close eyes preggo friend):

The photo doesn't totally do it justice. It turned out cute, thankfully, because I haven't done any embroidery for years. There are zillions of resources out there, but I bookmarked the Home Sewing Projects site because it gave me a good refresher on the basic stitches. For this project, I mostly used the outline stitch.

If you haven't ever done embroidery before, I highly recommend it. I was even teaching my 4-year-old and he really enjoyed putting the needle in and seeing the colored thread start to form pictures. It's great for kids to learn small motor skills and they get a kick out of seeing what they can make.